Front wheel driven work vehicles, such as agricultural tractors, often have a difficult time maneuvering among crops growing in narrow rows in a field. Maneuverability is restricted as a result of the axle construction and configurations required to apply power to the front wheels. Many of these work vehicles include mechanical front wheel drives which require larger sized tires. As a result of the larger tires and the construction of the tractors, these work vehicles are unable to negotiate smaller radius turns, because the angles at which the front wheels can be turned is limited.
There have been several attempts to improve the maneuverability of work vehicles with mechanical front wheel drives. One early attempt provides an agricultural tractor with a mechanical front wheel drive having large caster angle front wheels. The large caster angle enables a wheel to tuck under the tractor as the tractor turns. While this arrangement allows the tractor to negotiate smaller radius turns, sharper turns are still limited by interference of the steering cylinder with the axle housing.
In another attempt to increase maneuverability, a vehicle is provided in which both the axis of rotation of the drive shaft and the input shaft for the axle are aligned with the vehicle's oscillation centerline in order to increase the steering clearance of the vehicle. However, increasing the maximum steering angle is still hampered by interference of the wheel with the steering cylinder or the steering cylinder with the axle housing.
In view of the above-discussed problems, it would be desirable to increase the steering angles to permit the vehicle to negotiate tighter radius turns.